New River Ranch
Venues
New River Ranch was an outdoor country music park outside Rising Sun, Maryland, opened in 1951 by banjo player and songwriter Ola Belle Reed, her brother Alex Campbell, and her husband, Bud Reed. The Campbells had come north from North Carolina's New River Valley during the Depression and, after breaking their contract with nearby Rainbow Park, decided to build a stage of their own. The Ranch quickly became one of the most active music parks in the country and the first to bring big names in bluegrass and country to that corner of Maryland alongside the family's own New River Boys and Girls. The park ran for about seven years before the family moved its operation to Sunset Park in West Grove, Pennsylvania, around 1960, where they served as the house band for decades. Ola Belle went on to write "High on a Mountain Top" and receive a National Heritage Fellowship in 1986.
In the newsletter
- No. 30 August 2002